Four.  I wanted four kids.  FOUR, people. Clearly I was drinking too much crazy water back then.  My aforementioned stupid theory on child rearing (From my 20′s) goes as follows:

ONE – I knew for sure I didn’t want just one child because on the one hand only children have a tendency to be spoiled, childish and unable to relate to their peers (in my experience) and on the other hand I didn’t want to have just one child because should (god forbid) anything happen to said child I would be left childless and that would be awful.

TWO – Two just didn’t make any sense either because two is such a small number and what if (again, god forbid) something happened to one child and I was left with a now-only child?  See previous statement.

THREE – Three kids just wasn’t a valid option.  Middle child syndrome.  The end.

FOUR – This seemed to be the perfect number to me.  I avoid the only child complex, the middle child complex  and the fear of going from two to one.

FIVE – Yes, there was a time when I thought five kids was a great idea.  But  inside the theory I fall back into a middle-child category and also, FIVE IS WAY TOO FREAKING MANY KIDS.  I WOULD GO INSANE.

Well, now that I’m old (did I mention I turned 30 in April?) and now that I have two amazing kids, I know this for sure: My twenty year old self is a childless know-it-all fool.

It will never matter how many, or how few, children I have.  I will love them all with every fiber of my being in a way that no one else ever will.  There is no perfect number, no ability to really put a stop on how many you “want” because no matter how many kids I end up with, whether planned or “oops!” babies, I would want each and every one of them and love them no matter first or second or middle or last.  Because they are mine.  And mine are amazing.

Maybe it’s because Avelyn is growing into the most incredible little girl, or maybe it’s because my Noah is EIGHT MONTHS of bubbly baby perfection, or maybe it’s because there are 6 pregnant nurses on my unit but man, I am already wistful for the feeling of new life. 

I guess what I’m saying is that even though I am done having kids, I have the two most amazing children the world has ever seen… so that means if ever there were a third he or she would be mindblowing.  No?

I love my babies. LOVE. THEM. More than my own life or anyone else’s. I also know I struggle with myself regularly to be the mom I want to be. I know that to be that person, I am happy to call my family complete as it is right now. My Avelyn. My baby Noah. The two loves of my life. (Plus that other guy). I feel like once I gain a foothold on this whole I’m-a-parent-of-more-than-one-kid-now thing I will be able to provide each of them with enough of myself that we are all okay.

I just want them to grow up and KNOW they are loved. I want them to KNOW that I cannot fathom my life without them. I want them to someday know that I’m not sure I would have been able to breathe without either of them in my life.

I still can’t believe he is here or that I’m not pregnant anymore, something I’m thankful for and something that breaks my heart all at the same time because I know that two children will probably be it for us. Save for winning the lottery or someone coming out with a pill to make me psychologically capable of handling the emotional demands (or even just a failed birth control method in the future), I do not plan to have any more babies. It’s a bittersweet acceptance. But also a jumping off point for my future.

The pros to my childbearing coming to an end include getting in shape like I’ve been wanting to and not worrying about blowing up with pregnancy again. I can look forward to (mostly) always sleeping through the night (again) once Noah is out of babyhood! I’ll never have to feel like my vagina is being ripped apart with a serrated knife! We can all fit relatively comfortably in a four door car, a restaurant booth or a three bedroom house.

Of course there are cons to this decision to. I’ll never get to feel a tiny body moving inside my belly again or feel the earth shake as I pull another baby from my womb and lay him on my chest. I’ll never get to feel the warm heartbeat of new life or stare at the beautiful face I’ve created until my eyes could stay open no more. These things leave a little room for wonder. Not to mention the fact that stopping at two means I will be denying the world the awesomeness of our future children….

Although I am comfortable with the decision to not have any more kids (I really, really, REALLY do believe it’s best for us, best for ME), I have to put it out there that if we ever decided to add “just one more” in a few years, I would be absolutely, positively 1,000% over the moon to meet one more beautiful soul.

*I wrote this post when Noah was 14 days old. I was afraid it didn’t make sense at the time so I didn’t post it. It’s now 88 days after wrote it and I know exactly why it’s taken me 88 days to put it out there: a) the three year old next to me that for the love of god won’t stop talking AND OH HOW I MISS HEARING MY OWN THOUGHTS. OR SILENCE. and b) the three month old that is finally taking a nap in his crib for the FIRST time all by himself. What can I say? It never stops.

But enough about me. The real news is that my baby man turns TWO MONTHS old today.

The even BIGGER news is that this little GIRL turns THREE today!

How is that possible? And how did it happen so quickly?

Where does the time go???

Happy 3rd Birthday to my fabulous daughter! You impress me every day with who you are and who you are becoming. What a gift it is to watch you grow! I love you and I am SO proud of you.

Most times when I feel myself feeling too “whatever” I don’t act on it, I just walk away and steam or cry in the bathroom and feel really [insert emotion here].  Later I can look back and see that it was (usually) just my hormones, and I’m thankful I didn’t say or do anything crazy.

But sometimes I am just irritated that I can’t say what I want to say.  Not always mind you, because I come from a past filled with people that don’t filter, and say the first thing that comes to their mind which was usually cruel, hurtful and sometimes scarring.  I do not believe that’s a healthy way to live, and I don’t want to create that relationship inside my own family.

Sometimes, yes, you do need to say something to stand up for yourself or make a point.  But more often than not I think you should keep your mouth closed and take time to cool off until you can hold a rational conversation and be able to listen and absorb and recognize the other persons point of view and the fact that sometimes, they might in fact be right.  Which in turn means that yes, you might in fact be wrong.  It’s a novel concept for many people, I know.

All that to say 1) these pregnancy hormones are really getting to be annoying and 2) it should go without saying that due to the previous statement, my husband is driving me crazy.

He still only works two days a week but they are full days and he’s gone about 8am to 8pm so we don’t see him.  Now he’s involved in this pseudo-documentary thing that he works on every other day so, we don’t see him.

[Enter my hormonal rant today]

For one, we haven’t seen much of him in over a week and have spent almost zero time together since he’s started.  I’m trying to be supportive about it because at least it’s something film related and he doesn’t have much if any of that in between Chicago in the summers but, and a huge but here, but I don’t really care.

Second, it leaves me in a lurch with childcare.  We had planned to put Avelyn in a preschool program two or three days a week starting this month but decided there weren’t any programs available that fit our specific needs at this time.  We thought we found a great solution when a friend was free the two days a week I needed and were really excited about her watching Avelyn in the home without other kids to worry about but due to a scheduling conflict that fell through too.  Kevin’s parents have watched her when necessary but I don’t want that to be a permanent solution, for multiple reasons.  The broadest being I think grandparents deserve to treat grandchildren like grandchildren, and if they are responsible for keeping her on a regular basis then they really need to make an effort to stick to our rules and our schedules and do things our way, just like a regular babsitter would be expected to do.  That’s been an ongoing issue with them from the beginning.  It’s not a situation that is fair to me as a parent or to them as a grandparent either.  Also, I don’t feel like Kevin ever really hears me on this topic.  I always feel like he’s totally annoyed with me when we talk about it and I tell him I don’t want his parents watching her as often as they do.

Coming back to the documentary subject, I’m a little ashamed to say I just don’t care.  I don’t.  I’m being supportive in the best way I can be right now in my condition which basically means keeping my mouth closed and staying out of the discussion.

In case you didn’t know, I am pregnant.  Almost thirty four weeks pregnant to be exact and my body is kicking into nesting gear and preparing to give birth.  I am still working 36 hours a week and I’m tired.  When I’ve been gone for 14 hours a day I don’t want to come home to a dirty house and an excuse that he was gone all day too and was too tired or too busy still working on something to clean up when he got home.  Because as far as I can tell, he got home by 7 or 8pm, and it’s midnight when I get home.  I’m sure that somewhere in those 4 or 5 hours he could have found 30 minutes to pick up and straighten.  I know this is possible because somehow on my days off I always spend at least the first half hour after breakfast cleaning the mess from the days before.

I’m stressed about getting things done that need to be done before the baby comes.  I’m stressed because we still don’t technically have a name yet.  (We actually have a first name we both like but I just found out it’s a lot more popular than I thought it was and I HATE that.  Also we haven’t totally settled on the middle name.  There are two possible options in the works.  One sounds better than the other and is a family name but the second is a family name that means more to me.  What to do, what to do…)  I’m stressed about working up to giving birth because physically I just can’t do what I used to be able to do and I don’t want anyone at my job to think I’m slacking.  I’m stressed about spending enough quality time with Avelyn before the new baby comes; I just love our time together so much.  I’m stressed just thinking about him going away for the summer again because it will be so hard for me, in so many ways.  I’m stressed thinking about what will happen if I go crazy after having a baby.  I freaking hate having people help me with anything.  I’m STRESSED because I’m so irritated with Kevin all the time, and I remember how hard it was after Avelyn was born, for months. Heck, maybe years?  (While we’re on the subject, can I add that I’m stressed about opening up comments again, something I would really like to do?  I’ve received enough email comments from people being really supportive about closing them and now I miss hearing from you guys.  I am opening up comments on this one post.  We’ll see how it goes.  I doubt I will open them up for good again because I know the people who often annoyed me with their words will starting stressing me out again.  Ugggggh.  It really sucks when one or two people ruin it for everyone else. Namely me )

In short, I’m stressed.  I’m irritated.  I’m tired.  I’m worried.  But so much more than that, I’m really, really excited and happy about having this baby, and the fact I sometimes feel all those other things just makes me annoyed today.

What the heck, Life?  Can’t you throw me a bone?  Preferably in the form of a husband who can read minds and subtle cues and just do everything I want him to say and do without me having to say it?  Because that would be suh-weet.

T-minus 44 DAYS OR LESS to go. Holy. Cow.

I used to take all kinds of crappy photos self portraits of Avelyn and I when she was a baby.  These days the fight usually isn’t worth the battle.  However, wouldn’t a whole album of pictures like these just be wonderful to show my grandkids one day?  No matter, she is still my absolute favorite person of ALL. TIME.

Do you know why I don’t have time?  Because my full time 7-day a week day job involves a TWO YEAR OLD.  And my full time 36-hours a week job exhausts what little energy I have left to give.

Do you know what having a two year old does to your time?  SUCKS IT CLEAN AWAY.

Do you know what else a two year old does?  Blows you away with her awesomeness while simultaneously DRIVING. YOU. UP. THE. FRICKIN. WALL.

As of this minute she is crawling out of her room for the third time in the last hour refusing to nap.  Clearly this nap time/me time is not in the cards.  Also I just noticed she does not have a diaper on and although she doesn’t have one, she keeps repeating “stinky butt, stinky butt, stinky butt”.  Maybe she tooted?

Speaking of not having diapers on, I would LOVE to not have diapers on that tush because she had learned to use the potty but that has still not happened.  Probably mostly my fault, because I am usually too exhausted during the day to attempt the rigid, every 30 minutes schedule of sitting on the toilet or whatever you’re supposed to do to train them.  Also I don’t think she wants to.  Every time I take the diaper off for 5 minutes she pees on the floor.  Usually IMMEDIATELY after we’ve sat on the toilet for 10 minutes with no success. Either way, I haven’t seriously looked into the matter, but it’s infuriating none the less.

Oh great, I just snapped at her because I’m trying to finish this stupid post – the real reason why I don’t blog anymore. What kind of a mother spends time on the computer instead of with her kid?  I don’t want to be that mom.

I can’t tell you how many half written drafts I have waiting in my box, that will never be posted because now they’re really old, because I haven’t had 30 minutes to myself in at least a year.  Which isn’t a terrible thing because I’m happy with my life but holy crap… THAT’S why I just don’t blog anymore.

In case you were wondering it’s me, not you.

It got me to thinking, how could something so significant, according to the letters anyway, be so insignificant now?  As I read the words I had written I had a sense that maybe I had never written them to begin with, that maybe an entirely different person penned those letters.

I was hit with the realization that that is in fact the case.  Sort of.  I’m not that person anymore.  The thought that I was ever that girl astounds me.

That girl wrote silly letters to herself/God/her dead father in a way that is unbelievably embarrassing to read now, but must have felt so poignant in the making.  Aside from the fact that her handwriting is marginally familiar, the stories she wrote are completely foreign.

Yes, I do very vaguely remember a time when I felt like I might DIE after I broke up with my first real boyfriend.  I can recall distant memories of a girl who survived on not much more than bagels and Mountain Dew for an entire year and still thought she was fat.  And sometimes I think about the fun I might have had if I’d just gone out with my friend when he asked me because oh em gee ladies, it would have been a hot summer.  But oh the difference it would have made today.  (And I’m really happy with today.)

Of all the forgotten things I found in that box I was most surprised at what I felt as I looked through them.  Mixed in with the letters of heartbreak and teenage love triangles are badges and awards, school programs, drivers licenses and the like.  It’s a little shoebox, and it’s filled with mementos I thought were important enough at the time to save.  Thank God that awkward teenage girl thought enough of those items to keep them.  She must have known that someday I would need to remember where I was, so I could appreciate where I am.

I’ve begun to catch myself reminiscing more and more about the past.  Maybe it has to do with the UN-day-to-day things I see at my job that become day-to-day the more I see them.  Maybe it has to do with Avelyn growing up right before my eyes or maybe it has something to do with (GAH!) the ever looming 3-0 coming up next year, I’m not sure.  Either way I think I might start writing more about my past.  It’s cathartic and yet oh so self mutilating to do so but the more I think about it, I’ve got a story to tell, even if it’s for no one but me.

I used to want 5 kids.  FIVE.  Back when I was crazy and newly married and had no idea of how much debt I would incur with two degrees and a husband with a dream.  Back when I thought staying home with my kids would be the only thing I ever wanted to do (in which case why did I bother going to school and accumulating debt in the first place?).  Back before I birthed my first baby and went a little crazy and felt like I might die everyday. 

Fast forward a few years and I’ve got one kid, one fantastic kid mind you, and the stomach churning questions I wrestle with every five minutes or so.

• Do I really want any more children?
• How long do I want to wait to have another?
• What if I wait too long?
• What am I waiting for?
• Ohmygod this child is so adorable and look!  Look at her baby pictures!  I want another one!  Oh wait, there goes the screaming and annoying-ness.  Do I want another one?
• Loads of people do it everyday, some do it well, some not so well, but can I handle more than one?  Emotionally? Physically?

Some days it feels like an easy decision and I think back to my life before Avelyn and wonder what I’m waiting for.  I really had no life before her.  Kevin and I weren’t living some free and fancy “I want to live before I have kids!” mentality of so many young people.  No friends in town to go out with, no money to travel, heck no money to go out to eat.  Pretty much NO MONEY PERIOD and we had a baby anyway.  A “not planned but not prevented” baby and I thank God everyday for that unexpected blessing. 

Now we have a little more money.  Heck, we have a lot more money.  This working thing has a few really great perks, one of which being a REAL PAYCHECK.  We’re paying bills on time and paying down debts.  We’re eating out when we want to and buying things for the house without checking the account to make sure we can make it to payday.  We’re not rolling it and we still don’t have much leftover at the end of the month but we can provide for ourselves and it’s amazing. 

Now that we’re more “prepared” (whatever that means) we’re trying to “plan” this next potential baby.  Although it’s not like you can really “plan” to have a baby.  I mean it either happens or it doesn’t and not necessarily on your time.  And maybe that’s my problem.  The planning.  The waiting.  The believing I’ll be more prepared in [insert time frame here]. 

I was totally unprepared and broke the first time.  And over the moon with excitement.  Now I’m “prepared” and theoretically in a position to afford having a baby this go ’round.  And I’m petrified.

What if it’s too much?  What if this time I have a baby that’s reallysick?  What if Avelyn has a hard time with it?  What if I get depressed again?  Working is hard enough with one, how will I work with TWO kids?  Kevin wants another kid but “not right now… maybe in a year”, how can I put up with this worrying until both of us are ready? Gah! The sheer amount of questions!

If I do have more kids I don’t want them to be too far apart in age.  My siblings and I are all four years apart and that gap caused all sorts of problems growing up.  Four years is a huge difference developmentally, especially in same sex siblings.  I know there is no magic age, that every family is different, every kid is different, yada yada so save me that schpeel.  But still, I don’t want to wait too long.  She’s old enough now that a baby at any time would be the “right time” in my book. 

Maybe this little “problem” won’t end up being a problem anyway.  Maybe I won’t even get pregnant.  Maybe it won’t happen on my timeline and we’ll put it on the back burner another year.  Maybe.

Speaking of my insane delusions timeline: 

• April is out.  All three of our birthdays are within six days of each other in April.  NO MORE APRIL BABY’S, BABY.
• September is out because again, too many birthdays and it would kill me to have to hear for the rest of my life “Oh! That’s [insert family member's name here] birthday.  How neat!”  No, well meaning dummy.  NOT NEAT.
• May-August is out because Kevin goes to Chicago during the summers to run the film program at NHSI.  He loves it and it pays well so I don’t want him to not go ergo having a baby due right before or after he leaves is a bad plan.
• That leaves October through March.  But December is out because, hello! it’s Christmas and no one in their right mind should plan to have a baby at Christmas.  It’s just mean. 
• And January, well January means even more family birthdays as well as being the month after Christmas.  As Angella so eloquently stated, “January is the dullest month of the year and if I could have my way I would get a petition signed to rename it “Meh.”  He he he.  Meh.

So there we have it — the only months that I would *ideally* like to have a baby is February/March or October/November.  And if I had my *perfect* way in my *perfect* world, February/March would be out completely because February/March sucks big A and is cold, wet and rainy.  There’s a reason why so few people have birthdays during that time frame.  That and I guess the month of May/June is a really boring time for potential parents to be getting it on.

Okay.  That leaves October/November.  My ideal time frame.  The best of the best times for ME to have another baby. 

• Avelyn will be 2-1/2 years… going on 22.
• If I had a baby in November I would have December and January off for maternity leave.  (!)
• The baby would miss half of RSV season and sweet mother I am up to HERE in RSV babies at work and the less I have to deal with it the better.  (Note to babies under 12 months – STAY HOME and tell people to WASH THEIR HANDS AROUND YOU.)
• Avelyn would be three and the baby would be about 7 months old when Kevin left for Chicago next summer, meaning we might be in some kind of rhythm by then and my brain mightbe starting to recover from the liquefied mass it became after childbirth.

So okay, after writing this damn thing I think I might have talked myself into having another baby if for no other reason than I don’t want to have to think about it this much ever again.  So November it is (recall: IDEALLY).  But since October wouldn’t completely suck maybe I’ll sabotage the prophylactics a few weeks early and get a head start.  I mean you can’t ever be too *careful*.  Right?

Oh, and in case my husband is reading this and FREAKING. OUT.  (!)  Close your eyes and think back to this day, and how unbelievably excited we were, and will be again.

The fact is I AM BUSY*. I work between 36 and 50 hours a week at night, sleep a few hours during the day and still manage to be a full time mom every other waking minute. That leaves very little time to sit down in front of a computer and spend time typing.

Not to mention the fact that my husband is always hinting that my few precious evenings at home with him should not be spent in front of a computer screen romancing the internets with my wit.  Especially since (if all goes according to plan and you internets people keep prodding me in the right direction) I may or may not be persuaded to possibly admit that I am kind of sort of maybe or maybe not hoping to embark on another nine months of water retention and swollen ankles sometime in early 2010.  Maybe.  MAYBE.  But anyway.  Ahem. 

I started this post days ago with the attempt to fill it up to HERE with pictures.  Pictures galore! I tell you but then… sigh… then my laptop started freaking out LIKE IT ALWAYS FREAKING DOES and it was taking 10 minutes to open a single file and I quit.  I did this several times before I wizened up and just started updating my Flickr account.  SO.  Without further adieu…

Airplane watching.

Finger pointing.

Generally looking cute.

Wheely bugging.

No really, REALwheely bugging.

Hot chocolate.

Hot breakfasts.

Early morning attitude. 

Laughing.

Crafting.

Baking.

Loving.

Crying.

Practicing for the street life.

Growing up a little.

Growing up a lot.

I’d love to post the 2 1/2 minute video of her first school program performance but I am choosing not to for several reasons.  1) There is very little “performing” from the Hobo unless you consider a generally uncomfortable facial expression and sitting like a lump in the teachers lap a performance and 2) There are a ton of other kids in the video and I’m not one to post videos of other peoples kids without their permission.  Let me just tell you, it was really, really cute and she was REALLYREALLYREALLY-NO REALLY, I REALLY MEAN IT! -SHE WAS SO DAMN CUTE!

I would also like to post a clip from our Christmas morning but it’s on Kevin’s HD camera that is only able to be uploaded on his (not a fraction as crappy as mine) computer and the odds of it ever being seen by human eyeballs is slim to none.  I’m still waiting on my wedding video he promised.  SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS AGO.

Love that guy.

But really, the footage from Christmas wasn’t all that bad considering I had worked until 3:45am Christmas Eve and didn’t crawl into bed until 6am Christmas morning.  Oh-and Avelyn and I were fighting the BIG BAD COLD OF ALL COLDS.

Do any of you watch 30 Rock?  If you don’t, START WATCHING.  It is one of the funniest shows on television.  For reals, y’all.  (That was me channeling Britney Spears there, so you’d know how serious I was).  Anyway, after the “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001″ episode (Watch it.  NOW. And not just this episode. THE WHOLE SERIES.) I was more than a little worried about the sandbags of fatal exhaustion I had hanging beneath my eyes that the HD camera would surely emphasize.  Turns out HD decided to go easy on me and my sandbag eyes.  Probably only because it was Christmas but still. 

I was more than a little impressed with myself, which is rare for the self deprecating hate monkey I carry around on my back.  Maybe I really will start taking better care of myself in 2010.  It would be about time.  Maybe I’ll hold onto the one true thing I can always count on in life.  That this day, and every day I wake up, is a day I will look better than I will the day after, when I’m older, wrinklier, and more dried out than I was just one day before.

Hope your days have been as merry and bright as mine.

*Alternate title: Oh my gosh. That idiot finally wrote something.

We got up this morning to a bit of a rocky start and by rocky I mean that for five minutes I was thisclose to grabbing the garlic because I was sure Avelyn had been turned into a vampire in the night.  She was laying on the changing table while we had a delightful conversation when I DARED to turn on the lamp, causing her to cry out in pain, clutch her face in her hands and scream “It’s BURNING! BURNING!” or something to that effect. Nothing would calm her down after that except for the blasted “may-may” AKA pacifier.

Oh the irony that just last night I lay in bed thinking about the impending cry in the night signaling that the may-may had been thrown from the crib and could I pretty pretty please come find it and pop it back in my mouth LIKE RIGHT NOW MOM!

I had dreams about weaning her off – how to do it, when to do it, what kind of alcohol I should consume to get through it (fruity martinis sounded good).  Then I went a little crazy, and for a moment thought a cold turkey approach might be best, figuring a good two weeks of fit throwing and we’d be done with it.  But then I realized that it is the end of October.  THE END OF OCTOBER, PEOPLE.  As in the holidays are really here, and there is no slowing down for the next 10 weeks.  Also as in The Holidays.  Family.  Mandatory prison sentence-esque family time with people you have to pretend to get along with because a) they’re blood (WTF?) or b) you married someone who you actually DO enjoy spending time with and by virtue of a piece of paper you are now required to pretend you enjoy everyone else with their blood (WTdoubleF?).  OY TO THE VEY.

Immediately I realized that I would be OFFICIALLY INSANE to think that I myself could get through this season without Avelyn’s paci.

So here’s to the paci!  That ridiculous piece of rubber and plastic that my MIL so diligently and forcefully shoved in MY child’s mouth after I repeatedly asked/told/curtly requested she NOT do because I didn’t want her to get addicted to it and now she can’t live without.  Curses to you, paci!  My arch nemesis.  My greatest rival.  I hope you enjoy your last few weeks of being needed because come 2010 I’ve got a trashcan with your name on it.

(You heard me, Avelyn, and don’t give me that look young lady.)

So, are you guys looking forward to the holidays as much as I am?